 | Designed to Meet 21st Century Learning Needs The French Family Science, Math, and Technology Center has been a community-wide project for Ursuline Academy, from concept, to design, and through construction.
Every academic department was involved in the planning of this new facility, and groups of students were involved in giving feedback. Administrators, faculty, and staff members met every week with the construction managers, architects, engineers, and others to make sure that the new facility would meet the needs of students and teachers.
Now open, the new 70,000 -square-foot Center includes:
- 10 state of the art science labs (twice the former number)
- 9 math classrooms and a math lab
- 9 world language classrooms, each with its own built-in language lab
- 3 computer science classrooms
- New college counseling suite
- New faculty center with much-needed office and meeting space
- Sustainable science courtyard - a real outdoor classroom with a rainwater collection system for experiments and irrigation
- The KIVA - a new large gathering space, able to hold more than 200 students
- New Heritage Gallery for historical displays located in the Atrium area
- New student chapel
The layout of the classrooms and labs is designed to encourage interdisciplinary approaches to learning. The floor plan also provides a number of small gathering spaces for students, and more rooms for tutoring and meetings.
>>Return to homepage to view floor plans |
| | “Such an innovative project seems to fit perfectly into one of our school’s goals of teaching us to be global citizens, which includes self-awareness and sustainability for the future.” SARAH FITZGERALD
Class of 2009
President, Student Ambassadors
At Groundbreaking Ceremonies
September 23, 2008
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America's Need for Science, Engineering, Technical Talent In remarks to a group of Ursuline supporters, Karen Livesay Shuford '66, community leader, underscored the need to encourage careers in science, math, and technology.
"To remain competitive in a global economy, the U.S. will have to develop its technological literacy, talent, and expertise among our youth population – and not just half of that population," she said, citing the following statistics:
- Females constitute 45% of the US workforce, but hold just 12% of science and engineering jobs in business and industry.
- 75% of tomorrow's jobs will require the use of computers; yet, from 2000 to 2005, there was a 70% decline in young women majoring in computer science.
- The latest standardized test for high school seniors in 30 nations revealed that only 4 nations did worse than U.S. students in science and only 5 rated worse in math.
>>Full text of Karen Shuford's remarks
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